Rapid vertical exchange at fronts in the Northern Gulf of Mexico

Lixin Qu (), Leif N. Thomas (), Aaron F. Wienkers, Robert D. Hetland, Daijiro Kobashi, John R. Taylor, Fucent Hsuan Wei Hsu, Jennifer A. MacKinnon, R. Kipp Shearman and Jonathan D. Nash
Additional contact information
Lixin Qu: Stanford University
Leif N. Thomas: Stanford University
Aaron F. Wienkers: University of Cambridge
Robert D. Hetland: Pacific Northwest National Laboratory
Daijiro Kobashi: Texas A&M University
John R. Taylor: University of Cambridge
Fucent Hsuan Wei Hsu: Oregon State University
Jennifer A. MacKinnon: University of California San Diego
R. Kipp Shearman: Oregon State University
Jonathan D. Nash: Oregon State University

Nature Communications, 2022, vol. 13, issue 1, 1-11

Abstract: Abstract Over the Texas-Louisiana Shelf in the Northern Gulf of Mexico, the eutrophic, fresh Mississippi/Atchafalaya river plume isolates saltier waters below, supporting the formation of bottom hypoxia in summer. The plume also generates strong density fronts, features of the circulation that are known pathways for the exchange of water between the ocean surface and the deep. Using high-resolution ocean observations and numerical simulations, we demonstrate how the summer land-sea breeze generates rapid vertical exchange at the plume fronts. We show that the interaction between the land-sea breeze and the fronts leads to convergence/divergence in the surface mixed layer, which further facilitates a slantwise circulation that subducts surface water along isopycnals into the interior and upwells bottom waters to the surface. This process causes significant vertical displacements of water parcels and creates a ventilation pathway for the bottom water in the northern Gulf. The ventilation of bottom water can bypass the stratification barrier associated with the Mississippi/Atchafalaya river plume and might impact the dynamics of the region’s dead zone.

Date: 2022
References: View complete reference list from CitEc
Citations: View citations in EconPapers (1)

Downloads: (external link)
https://www.nature.com/articles/s41467-022-33251-7 Abstract (text/html)

Related works:
This item may be available elsewhere in EconPapers: Search for items with the same title.

Export reference: BibTeX RIS (EndNote, ProCite, RefMan) HTML/Text

Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:nat:natcom:v:13:y:2022:i:1:d:10.1038_s41467-022-33251-7

Ordering information: This journal article can be ordered from
https://www.nature.com/ncomms/

DOI: 10.1038/s41467-022-33251-7

Access Statistics for this article

Nature Communications is currently edited by Nathalie Le Bot, Enda Bergin and Fiona Gillespie

More articles in Nature Communications from Nature
Bibliographic data for series maintained by Sonal Shukla () and Springer Nature Abstracting and Indexing ().